Mohali, Apr 10: Young Nitish Reddy showed tremendous character during a vital 37-ball 64 as Sunrisers Hyderabad eked out a two-run win over Punjab Kings, surviving a daring attack by Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma in a see-sawing IPL match on Tuesday. Sent in to bat, the 20-year-old Reddy lifted SRH to 182/9 after PBKS had the visitors reeling at 66 for four in the 10th over. PBKS were stopped at 180/6, but they wouldn’t have gone that far had it not been for a whirlwind 66-run partnership between the heroes of their last match, Shashank (46 not out off 25 balls) and Ashutosh (33 not out off 15 balls). Needing 29 runs in the last over bowled by Jaydev Unadkat, SRH dropped three catches as Shashank and Ashutosh came within touching distance of pulling off another stunning win.
The Visakhapatnam-born Reddy, who started out as a batter at age group level before blossoming into a pace-bowling all-rounder, struck five sixes and fours fours during his unbeaten knock.
Left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh (4/29) was the standout bowler for PBKS, but SRH still eventually finished with a total that looked improbable at one stage.
Abdul Samad chipped in with a 12-ball 25 before Jaydev Unadkat ended the SRH innings with a last ball six.
In reply, the hosts were off to a disastrous start as they lost three wickets with only 20 runs on the board, one of them being captain Shikhar Dhawan (14 off 16 balls) who was stumped brilliantly by Heinrich Klaasen despite standing up to seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/32).
The run rate pressure got to Dhawan after the early dismissals of his opening partner Jonny Bairstow and Prabhsimran Singh.
Bairstow was bowled by SRH skipper Pat Cummins (1/22) for a three-ball duck after he looked to play across the line, while Prabhsimran (4) was sent back by Bhuvneshwar after the batter got a leading edge while trying to work the ball on the leg side.